


Afterwards - Episode 13 - Flame Street

by Windjammers



Series: Afterwards [13]
Category: Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 22:37:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18669763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windjammers/pseuds/Windjammers
Summary: The team travels to Tech City, the last known bastion of technology, to access the web in the hope that they can find information about Project New Order. The captain ‘jacks’ himself into the web but finds that dangers inside the mind can be more dangerous and frightening than he bargained for. But what happened afterwards?





	Afterwards - Episode 13 - Flame Street

_Disclaimer: The following is a work of fan fiction based on the television series, Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. It is not intended to infringe on the copyrights of Landmark Entertainment Corporation or anyone else who may have legal rights to the characters and settings. I don't own the characters. However, I am putting them into an adventure since the show was cancelled and the writers/producers/directors/actors can’t put them into any new adventures._

 

~*~*~*~*~

 

Hawk stirred the spoon around the pot, trying not to let the others’ grumbling change his mind.

“I don’t know, Hawk,” Scout paced slowly back and forth. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. We might be pushing them too fast.”

Tank agreed. “It may not be any of our business.”

Scout nodded his head. “We might be doing more harm than good.”

Hawk turned around and stared at his two friends. They were right, but then again, so was he. “You saw them at the hospital last month. Jon hardly left her side. Since then, we’ve been working practically non-stop, and they haven’t had a chance to sit, talk – I know for a fact that they haven’t played chess in over a month, and that’s when they do most of their talking. Besides, Tech City was not one of our better days even if we did get away with our hides and the file. What happened in the web hit too close to home for Jon, and Jennifer was uncomfortable about the entire mission before we went. They need time to process it.”

Tank agreed. “We were all uncomfortable in Tech City,” he mentioned. “The people there were different from anyone we’ve worked with.”

“You can say that again,” Scout said. “I don’t think we’ve ever met anyone like Mindsinger before.”

“Some of us haven’t,” Hawk immediately commented. “I know Jennifer hasn’t, but she hasn’t said a single word about Mindsinger or how she was acting. That’s how she used to behave years ago when something bothered her, and that’s not something I want her to start doing again. Lately, she’s talking to Jon as well as Mentor about everything. I don’t want those lines of communications to dry up.”

“We’ve had one mission after another,” Tank reminded him. “Not much time for rest in-between –”

“I know,” Hawk agreed completely. “That’s one of the reasons I said we needed a night off. Besides, it might be a good idea for us to arrange a way for them to talk to each other without us around.”

Tank chuckled. “You’re pushing.”

“I’m not pushing,” Hawk protested. “I’m just nudging them a little bit.”

Both Scout and Tank shrugged noncommittally. “How are you planning on getting them alone together? You know both of them will want to start analyzing the Styx file after supper.”

Hawk smiled a big grin. “Just keep an ear out for the announcements and follow my lead at supper. I’ve got a plan.”

 

~*~*~*~*~

 

**“Supper’s in twenty minutes.”**

Hawk’s voice sounded louder than usual over the speakers. Definitely louder. Luckily, that small headache Jon had from jacking into the web was almost gone or that loud announcement would have made his ears ring.

He still couldn’t believe his bad judgment. What had he been thinking? Jacking into the web? Possibly letting secrets from his mind seep into the system the same way the New Order information had from some of Dread’s troops? What if the location of the base was there and Mindsinger could access it? What if security codes lodged in the system? He alone knew the secrets to the power suits. What if --

No. Enough.

He took a deep breath and tried to clear his mind. They had needed that information about Project New Order, so that meant that someone had to jack in to the web. There was no other option. The risks they faced were the substantially negative side effects and the inherent dangers of jacking a live mind into a computer system. Power failures, grid degradation, circuits blowing -- whoever went in could be damaged before they came out. Risking their lives was what they did on a daily basis, but this went beyond the ordinary risks they faced in the war. One could lose one’s mind in the web.

Scout, with his computer skills and knowledge, would have been the obvious choice and Jon’s first choice under normal circumstances. He would have known exactly what to look for, what to find and how to get to the information more efficiently than Jon could. Hacking into the web was something Scout used to do before he joined the team, but jacking into it? If anything went wrong, then the team would lose a valuable member with rare skills. It wasn’t a justifiable risk in Jon’s opinion.

Hawk wasn’t overly fond of computers. He could operate them, he could load data into them, but he didn’t have as in-depth a knowledge of them as the others did. He was old school. He preferred the hands-on approach, not the cyber-charged world of the computer. If Jon asked, Hawk would have done it without question or hesitation, but there was more to consider. Jacking into the web wasn’t like other missions. If anything happened in there, Jon would lose a surrogate father, but the team would lose the one person who kept them together, who kept them working as a team. In his own inimitable way, Hawk was the one person who balanced everything and everyone. He could relate to every member of the team personally, and that helped keep them working as a team.

Tank was also old school but not quite as much as Hawk. He preferred a stand up fight to sneaking around a cyber grid. As valuable as Tank was to the team, one question that Jon asked himself was could he risk Tank’s knowledge of history getting lost or becoming a leaked file to be sold to the highest bidder? Tank knew so much about the past that had been lost, and that knowledge couldn’t get ripped apart by the web if there were a problem. Listening to him as he explained many past concepts and events to Jennifer over the years was proof of that.

Jennifer – the moment they learned that some of Dread’s soldiers had been using Tech City to jack themselves into the web, Jon saw a look of horror in Jennifer’s eyes. She was good at hiding her emotions, but Jon caught the look of fear just before she looked away.

_“Pilot?” Jon asked._

_Without hesitation, Jennifer added her observations to the conversation. “Dread must not know that some of his soldiers are jacking into the web, or if he does, then he doesn’t know that information is being left behind. If he did, he wouldn’t allow it and would have the soldier removed. He would have to change passwords, security protocols --”_

_“How could Dread not know?” Scout asked. “Jacking in is done with a computer, the web is on computers, Overmind controls most computers. It could easily get into the system.”_

_Hawk shook his head. “Then why would Dread need Tech City to access the web?”_

_“Good question,” Scout thought quietly to himself, then added, “Maybe Overmind can access the web but can’t control it?”_

_“How is that possible?” Tank asked. “Overmind was designed to control other computer systems.”_

_“Because it’s not a computer system,” Scout said brightly. “The web is grid after grid and server after server of data and information. Remember, before the wars, the information technologists would say that nothing is ever really deleted on the web? The amount of information is massive. It’s more than the human mind can comprehend. Even with detailed searches, it could take days to find something you’re looking for. Maybe Overmind has that problem. The web is huge, he can’t destroy it, he can’t control it but he can access it. With Tech City, he can have who knows how many troops in there searching for specific information that he can’t spend the resources using.”_

_“Jacking into the system might save time,” Jennifer mused aloud, “and Overmind might not know that information is being gathered from the soldiers.”_

_It was a valid theory, but the look in Jennifer’s eyes still worried Jon. “You think it’s more than that?”_

_“No,” Jennifer answered, then, “Yes. I mean, I can’t imagine any Dread soldier purposely jacking in and leaving information behind willingly. That would make them traitors to the Machine.” She thought for a moment. “It’s possible that the information is being retrieved by Mindsinger without the soldiers’ knowledge, but that’s another risk altogether if anyone got caught doing that. We’ve heard a rumor that jacking in is addictive, and no soldier could be caught having an addiction. They’d get digitized if they were. But if Overmind or Dread is orchestrating this, it’s possible that they’re doing it for a larger purpose. They might be doing research.”_

_“What kind?” Scout asked._

_“Jacking in means becoming one with the Machine. It’s like being –”_

_“An immortal mind in a metalloid body,” Jon finished for her. In a way, it was the stark reality of the litany coming true. “There were problems with other transfers, so they might be researching what happens to the human mind when it’s mechanized.”_

_Jennifer nodded her head. “Maybe.”_

_There was something in her voice that Jon heard, some hint of doubt. “But?”_

_Jennifer sought the right words. “I don’t know. None of it makes any sense. These files about New Order are there, we’ve been told that they’re there and how to get access to them. It sounds like a trap, but every bit of Intel we have is telling us it’s not. The information is there for the taking, and it all seems too easy.”_

_Hawk leaned forward and reminded them of an old truism. “How closely do we want to look in the mouth of this gift horse?”_

It didn’t make sense at the time, and it still didn’t make any sense hours later. The more Jon thought about it, the more confusing it became. Why would any Dread soldier risk that much to jack in unless they had been ordered to? If they had been ordered to, then why since information could be gleaned from their minds so easily? It was possible they didn’t know; it was possible that Dread didn’t know, but Overmind? How could it not know? But what if it did? What if the information that took them to Tech City was part of an elaborate trap to trick Jon to do exactly what he did?

Then there was the other question – if Overmind was behind it all, then why would his troops have to go to Tech City? Why couldn’t they jack into the web in Volcania like Dread did?

Jon’s mind felt like it was going in circles.

No matter what the dangers were, it was a risk they had to take. Any one of them would have done it, and there were reasons Jon didn’t let anyone else jack in. Reasons for the team, reasons for the future – but Jennifer’s observations had hit too close to home for her. Jon could tell that immediately. She had escaped being transferred into a biomech by just days and a little luck. That was one nightmare he’d keep from her if he could.

Then there was the issue of… forget it. Who was he kidding? He let his emotions get the better of him, let them get in the way of making a command decision on a mission where others were more qualified for the task, and he wouldn’t jeopardize any other member of his team. He chose himself.

Still, Jon had left them vulnerable. Perhaps Dread had already gone back into the web to retrieve any information Jon had unknowingly left behind?

Dread learned how to maneuver in the web very quickly – with or without Overmind’s help. He also proved he knew how to find information Jon thought he had hidden away in his mind. What was worse, Dread knew Jon. He knew how to hurt him. He proved that point when he showed Jon the Power Base and all four of his teammates dead.

The risk of Dread locating the base had always existed. It loomed in the background every time they flew out on a mission. Only two outsiders had been to the base – Jessica Morgan and Andy Jackson, but both had kept the secret. If either were caught or captured, interrogated…

Keeping the base’s location secret was a continuous safeguard, but losing his friends was the nightmare that woke Jon up at night. Dread had used that fear against him in the web -- Hawk, Tank, Scout… _Jennifer_ … all dead, lying motionless on the floor and Dread taunting him with the fact. The base, he could lose. He had already reconciled himself to the fact that if the day came that the base had to be destroyed, he could go on. He could live with that decision. Losing one of his friends, that was something he wasn’t prepared to do. Not yet.

Yet Dread revealed more than he might have suspected. True, he knew the way to get to Jon was by using his friends, but now Jon knew his enemy’s weakness – Taggert’s conscience and Stuart Power.

His dad…

_I’m a dream. I live on in my son, and you can’t kill a dream_

Whether it was Jon conjuring his dad or if it was Dread, it was classic Stuart -- stating the obvious in a very unpretentious way. It was something he always did. Perhaps it was because Stuart was so smart that he didn’t always consider that someone else didn’t see the obvious as easily as he did.

_You can’t kill a dream._

Dreams… Jon had dreams. He had ambitions. He had plans and wants and desires. He dreamed of what the world had lost, what he had lost, of what he hoped to have one day. Oddly enough, his dreams weren’t all that out of the ordinary. He dreamed of having a home and a family. Mostly, he dreamed of having a future, one where he didn’t have to fight anymore, where his children could grow up in relative peace. Stuart had that same dream for Jon and died trying to keep the dream alive.

Dread couldn’t kill Jon’s dreams. Nothing Dread could do would kill his dreams. He wouldn’t let him.

But even though dreams couldn’t be killed, the dreamers could.

_You wouldn’t listen. You never listened!_

That was the point of contention, wasn’t it? Lyman Taggert wanted his metalloid, mechanized world. He wanted to ‘make the world perfect’ and couldn’t understand why Stuart disagreed. His dad had listened -- Jon was certain of that -- but the horrors Taggert wanted to unleash on the world bordered on the insane. Stuart was the one person who could have talked sense to Taggert if were possible, but the Lyman Taggert they once knew no longer existed. Because of that, Stuart had been killed. One nightmare began; the dreamer had died, but not the dream.

Jon didn’t know who conjured up his father when he was in the web. For all he knew, it was Dread’s guilty conscience, one that he didn’t know he had. Maybe, just maybe, there was one spark of humanity left in him if Stuart’s ability to reason could still affect him. Jon didn’t hold out any hope that there would be any lasting effects or that there would be any chance of reaching Lyman Taggert under the many layers of Lord Dread, but perhaps there was a chink in his armor they could exploit. Sometimes, slight chances could yield a big return.

Stuart had once dreamed of stopping the wars and helping bring about a peace. That dream was now Jon’s to make happen. Once peace was achieved, then maybe his own dreams of a future could come true.

Okay. Enough. The mission was completed and they got what they were after. Jon would just twist himself up in knots if he kept analyzing every move, worrying over every possible outcome. What’s done was done, what would happen would happen and they would deal with the consequences as they came. Hawk had said that since they got back to the base late, they were all taking the rest of the night off. He didn’t want to talk shop; he didn’t want to hear anything bad. They were going to have a nice supper and a few hours down time before they started studying the New Order file the next day. That was a request Jon was more than happy to follow. A few hours downtime – they could use it.

Then maybe the rest of his headache would go away.

Jon picked up his monk’s robe and folded it as he walked to the storage room. A monk -- he didn’t know how much longer they could continue using such disguises. The massive population decrease due to the wars and digitizations had also decreased the populations in the religious orders. Not only that, there weren’t that many organized religions in existence any longer. Followers of The Neon was one of the few in existence that still ventured into settlements and towns, so impersonating a group of traveling Neon monks was the easiest way to infiltrate Tech City and disguise their identities.

For the moment.

He placed his robe alongside all the other disguises they used from time to time. A quick glance around showed everything in its place. The monks’ robes, the techs’ outfits, the traders’ rags, the Dread Youth uniforms… he stopped when he got to the uniforms. Jennifer had ‘procured’ them months earlier when he was caught and interrogated. Cadet, Youth Leader, Overunit – and another type of uniform Jon didn’t recognize. It resembled the others, but it had different markings indicating a high rank. He picked up the shirt and examined it. He was certain he had never seen any soldier wear that particular uniform.

“What’s this?” he muttered.

 

~*~*~*~*~

 

Jennifer knew why she was angry.

She hadn’t felt like that in a long time, but it wasn’t just anger. It was confusion. It was the feeling she used to have when she learned about some aspect of life that Dread had kept from her.

It all started when they met Mindsinger. No, to be honest, the anger started then. The confusion started just moments before when Hawk expressed surprise at Mindsinger being a woman. Why had that come as a surprise? There had been nothing said or any indication that Mindsinger was male or female, so why the assumption that she was male? Why the surprise when the team learned she was female?

Then there was Mindsinger herself. She didn’t speak to Jennifer, didn’t look at her, and she directed all her attention and conversations to the guys. When she entered the room, the first words Mindsinger said were, “Something I can do for you boys?” It was as if Jennifer wasn’t there and wasn’t worth acknowledging.

She understood the psychology behind the behavior. Overunits and caretakers used a similar method on the children in Volcania. Jennifer referred to it as the “divide and conquer” technique of praising one person while insulting another to demean a subordinate or create a psychological hierarchy. It was a mind game, a power play, but why did Mindsinger use it?

It was an incredibly overt behavior. The more Jennifer tried to categorize it and describe it, the more baffled she became. She had never seen the ploy used like that before. That, along with the way she looked over the guys, made Jennifer suspect Mindsinger’s motives.

She certainly didn’t like the way Mindsinger looked at Jon – as if he were an object to be appraised.

What confused her the most was that the boys seemed unaware of Mindsinger’s behavior. Maybe that was a usual behavior and she wasn’t aware of it? Her experience with non-Dread Youth females was far less than her dealings with non-Dread Youth males. When she first joined the team, she had to learn a new set of behaviors for both. In the Dread Youth, gender meant nothing other than the fact there was a biological difference. It had nothing to do with behavior, promotions, military respect or protocol. Outside of the Dread Youth, the male/female issue took on an entirely new meaning.

Then again, maybe this was just one of those cultural differences that she had to wait a little longer to understand.

She folded up her monk’s robe as she walked down the hallway. A monk. She had grown up with the religion of the Machine. After she escaped the Dread Youth, she learned that thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of religions had once existed. That particular conversation with Mentor had been very enlightening but very perplexing. One very valuable aspect she learned was that sometimes, the only thing known about a religious order was what people saw because some religious practices and rituals were private. The Followers of the Neon were known to walk through towns chanting _“Blessed be the Neon. Its light shall guide us.”_ No one truly understood what they believed or the rituals they followed, so pretending to be a Follower of the Neon was a perfect way to sneak into Tech City.

Then there was one nagging question that she had no answer for: females weren’t monks, so why was it no one questioned her being dressed as a monk? It seemed as if everyone was purposely ignoring them instead of them trying to hide in plain sight.

There was a click heard over the speaker. **“Okay, everybody, this is your major speaking. Supper will be served in fifteen minutes, so everyone finish up what you’re doing and get to the mess hall. And since I cooked, I’m not cleaning up. Last ones to arrive get KP.”**

Jennifer smiled. Hawk had insisted that they were going to have a nice dinner that night. They had worked for it, they owed it to themselves and nothing was going to deprive them of it. She walked more quickly down the hallway and into the storage room and saw Jon staring at the uniform. From the bewildered look on his face, she guessed he had no idea what the insignia meant. “It’s a sector leader’s uniform,” she explained as she placed her monk’s robes in the pile of disguises on the shelf.

“Sector leader?” Jon asked.

“I was surprised to find it. I wouldn’t have thought there were any sector leaders at the location, but there it was.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

A sector leader? Jon had never heard of the term. “What rank is that?”

“The highest rank a Dread Youth can reach. Their authority is second only to Dread’s. They control entire military troops within certain sections of the country from a secluded location.”

They “led” from secluded locations? Those terms seemed a bit contradictory. “So they’re Dread’s generals?” Jon asked.

“More or less. I wouldn’t be able to pass for one until I’m older. There’s an age restriction.”

Jon almost chuckled as he refolded the shirt. “It seems there’s still a lot we don’t know about Dread. I didn’t know he had generals.”

“A few. Given how big the Machine Empire became, Dread and Overmind couldn’t keep control without delegating some authority over the sectors to certain officers. They have the authority to speak to Overmind directly without an invitation. They’re never seen in battle, and no one except Dread and Overmind know who they are.”

Jon had never heard of that type of general. “Wait, no one knows?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “Dread keeps their identities a secret.”

A secret? Then that meant – “Then it’s possible that since you found this uniform there, then one of the guards who interrogated me could have been a sector leader.”

Jennifer sighed. “Not likely,” she said, her voice taking on a hint of frustration. “This uniform is more my size. The sector leader would have been female.”

Her size? Right. The youth leader that had interrogated him – what was his name? Royer? -- had been taller, and Williams had towered over Jennifer. Still, she had been able to take him out of a fight in an impressive feat of endurance.

Then who could have worn the uniform? Who would have been the sector leader, possibly disguised as a lower rank? He didn’t remember seeing any female soldiers there.

**“Ten minutes,”** Hawk’s voice sounded over the speakers. **“Jon? Jennifer? You’re the only two not here!”**

Both laughed at Hawk’s frustrated tone. Jon placed the uniforms back on the shelf and said, “I think we’ll be the ones on KP tonight.”

 

~*~*~*~

 

“I just don’t get it,” Scout grumbled as he pulled open the scanner’s chassis. “Five troopers, it read. Five. Not more, not less. Five. Why?”

“How many were there?” Jon asked him.

Tank sat down at the table. “More than five. We’d shoot one and another would take its place.”

“But the scanner read one biodread and five clickers,” Scout said again. “This makes no sense.”

Jennifer looked over at the mish-mash of circuits and wires. “I don’t think it’s the scanner,” she suggested. “I think it might have been something else that we haven’t calibrated our scanners for.”

His scanner wasn’t malfunctioning? Scout liked that idea. “What do you think happened?”

“First, it was Tech City. The only place that has more electrical equipment or generated power is Volcania. There’s no way to gauge how much interference was being produced from the machines alone. Also, with the cyber uplinks in the building we were in, Mindsinger would have had to have some kind of dampers operating to keep the servers and processors from being scanned or accessed remotely. That would have caused some interference as well for the scanners.”

Scout sighed. “Good point. I didn’t even think of the dampers. But it read Blastarr perfectly. It was a biodread.”

“Blastarr’s too big to be scanned as anything else but a biodread by the scanner,” Jennifer added. “Then there’s the chance that some of the biomechs already had a human mind transferred into them. The scanner not only picks up bodies, it registers the electrical impulses in a biomech circuit board. That’s one of the ways the scanner differentiates a human from a clicker over a large distance since we’re roughly the same size. The ones with the human minds could have lost more of a connection with Volcania than the ones that are purely mechanical as soon as they came into the city and was affected by the interference. The scanner might not have read them as purely mechanical, and –”

“Would have rejected the reading for that very reason and not considered it a clicker,” Scout finished for her. “Makes sense. If our scanners experienced interference, then it’s fair to say that the biomechs did as well.” He looked at the now wide-open scanner. “Which makes our scanners useless in some cases. That stinks.”

Hawk walked in from the kitchen carrying a large tray of… something. “I hope that comment doesn’t refer to my excellent cuisine.”

“Nope, never,” Scout protested. Then, he leaned over to Jennifer and loudly whispered with a grin, “Never say anything bad to someone else when they do the cooking.”

Hawk placed the pot on the table and took hold of the handle on the lid. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you tonight’s repast.” With a flourish, he lifted the lid. “Peas and potatoes ala Masterson.”

It did smell delicious.

“My comment was definitely not for the main course,” Scout teased.

Jon certainly appreciated the aroma. “Where did you get peas and potatoes?”

Hawk started spooning the food into the plates and passing them around. “They were a gift to Scout from Chelsea Chandler from the Passages. Scout didn’t think he could do such a gift justice with his meager culinary skills, so he waited until it was my turn to cook.”

“Chelsea?” Tank asked. “It’s been a while since we’ve heard from her, hasn’t it?”

“Not really,” Scout told them. “I’ve had a few conversations with her from time to time. Anyway, when we were at the Passages a few days ago, she gave me a small bag of vegetables she grew in Hydroponics as a gift.”

Jennifer tasted the meal. “Very impressive gift. Was there a special occasion or was this just a spur of the moment idea Chelsea had?”

Hawk blew on his food to cool it down. “And what do you think Patricia thinks about all that?”

Scout slowly scooped up a spoonful of his meal, looking sideways at the others. “Patricia and I get along just fine, thank you very much,” he said.

Jon took another bite of his supper. “Not if she finds out Chelsea is giving you gifts like this. They do work together, don’t they?”

“In Hydroponics,” Jennifer confirmed.

Jon stopped his spoon in mid-air. “Must make for some interesting conversations.”

Tank scooped up seconds. “Very interesting. It makes you wonder what they’re saying. After all, not everyone gets peas and potatoes as a gift,” he added.

Scout leaned back and said with a grin, “You know, all of you keep this up, and I won’t share my bounty next time.”

“Next time?” Jennifer asked. “So you _do_ expect future gifts like this from Chelsea. Patricia might get a bit jealous.”

“Unless Patricia tries to outdo Chelsea,” Hawk observed. “She might get us cucumbers, zucchini, carrots – I know how to make a dish with carrots that will make your mouth water. Learned it from a cook at Fort Alden.”

“Fort Alden?” That got Tank’s attention. “You were at Fort Alden?”

“Not during the attack,” Hawk told him. “I was there about a year earlier. Did temp duty for a month when I was in-between mission assignments. I didn’t do anything but keep my plane in top condition and walk around the town. I met some nice folks there, especially the temporary cook at the commissary. She was a former Army Ranger who worked covert ops for a time. She got shot up pretty bad on a mission and couldn’t go out in the field again so she got assigned desk duty. She cooked as a hobby, so when they asked if she’d help in the kitchens when the cook was out sick, she agreed. Taught me a few tricks to field cooking you don’t learn anywhere else in the military.”

“Field cooking,” Scout shook his head. “Nowadays, that’s all anyone does.”

“But not us tonight,” Hawk told him. “Thanks to our kitchen, we’re dining on haute cuisine for once. I think even the cook at Fort Alden would be impressed with my efforts on this dish.”

“She was a _good_ cook?” Jon asked him.

“Good _field cook_ ,” Hawk told him. “She took a lot of pride in the fact. Give her c-rations or an MRE or whatever you could find dug up out of the ground and she could literally make a feast with nothing but a knife, a pan and a campfire. Give her something in a can, and she just tossed it back at you. Drove the supply officer crazy. He kept trying to stock the kitchens and she’d reject most of what he ordered. She was a rare woman.”

“Why?” Jennifer asked.

Hawk dipped out seconds for himself as well. “Why what?”

“Why was she a rare woman?”

“Oh, uh,” Hawk sought the right words, “she was strong willed, very competent, extraordinarily confident, good soldier, didn’t have a weak bone in her body --”

“But that’s not rare,” Jennifer stated. “There are a lot of people who fit that description, soldiers and civilians both.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Hawk cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “That’s not exactly what I meant…”

Jon put his spoon down and leaned back in his chair, his expression showing utter amusement at Hawk’s discomfort. “Want to explain that further, Matt?” he asked, barely suppressing a grin.

“Explain…” Hawk cleared his throat. “It’s just… uh… you see… Tank, help me out here,” Hawk begged.

Tank shook his head. “I’m busy eating. I think I’ll let you field this one.”

“Field what?” Jennifer asked them.

Scout laughed. “It’s a guy/girl thing,” he told her.

Guy/girl thing? “It is?” she asked.

Hawk tried again. “Sort of. A couple of centuries ago, some countries didn’t allow women to join the military. Some did in disguise, some helped out unofficially on the battlefields, but it just wasn’t done. Women were considered… uh… look, it sort of goes back to an older belief that men had to protect women or that women couldn’t physically handle the rigors of a military life.”

Jennifer thought for a moment, then, “But none of that is true. How does an incorrect belief from a couple of centuries ago have anything to do with a soldier being considered raretoday?”

“Well,” Hawk thought for a moment, “used to, not always, but a lot of the times centuries ago, men did most of the heavy physical labor; women took care of the house and family. Men held the jobs, women stayed home. A lot of times, men were considered the primary caretakers and providers for the family, and this perception grew out of that – as wrong as it is, and the perception is very wrong – but the idea that there are certain jobs that could be gender specific… uh… lingers.”

Scout whispered loudly, “Open mouth, insert foot.”

“Wait a minute,” Jennifer looked at all four of her friends, “I think something just made sense. Are you saying that there are people who still think that women aren’t as capable as men for certain jobs?”

“I…. wouldn’t say that,” Hawk countered quickly. “It’s just … a lingering perception. There were certain careers some people didn’t associate with certain people. These days, everything from soldiering to scrounging includes everyone. Jobs taken based solely on gender don’t exist anymore but there are still some preconceived notions that --”

“Wait,” Jennifer put her spoon down. “That’s why you were surprised to learn that Mindsinger was a woman, isn’t it? You didn’t consider it. You were expecting someone who ran a jack-in unit and dealt with who knows how many Dread Youth soldiers to be a male.”

Hawk coughed as the others laughed. “And that was clearly a wrong assumption on my part,” he said lowly.

Tank leaned over toward Scout. “Foot is in the mouth all the way up to the ankle.”

“You two aren’t helping,” Hawk complained jokingly.

Jon smiled. “I think they’re doing a great job helping you.”

Jennifer laughed out loud. “So that’s why Mindsinger was behaving the way she was,” she concluded. “I didn’t understand it until now.”

The men had no idea what was so amusing. “How was she behaving?” Jon asked.

“You mean to tell me that none of you picked up on what she was doing?” Jennifer asked them. She smiled at their confused looks. “When she came down, she looked all of you in the eye and then she asked _what can I do for you boys_. She didn’t talk to me the entire time we were there. She didn’t even yell at me after I set off that EMP burst.”

“She didn’t speak to you?” Jon asked.

Jennifer shook her head. “No. I thought she’d be a little upset that I shut down her facility, but she acted almost like she was expecting it. There was no surprise.”

“And she wasn’t angry,” Hawk mused. “I didn’t notice. Jon, did you?”

Jon thought for a moment, and then shook his head. “Not really. I was more focused on her explanation about navigating the web before and then getting out of there afterwards.”

“Maybe she doesn’t get angry,” Scout suggested. “Maybe she’s the type who just doesn’t get surprised by much.”

“Possibly. I’d say she’s another type of rare woman,” Hawk mentioned as he finished his meal.

Jon disagreed. “I don’t know if I’d call her rare. She didn’t seem anything out of the ordinary to me.”

“She didn’t?” Jennifer asked. “Someone like her, I don’t know if I’d call her ordinary.”

Neither one of them noticed the amused looks Hawk, Tank and Scout shared.

 

~*~*~*~*~

 

Sometimes, Hawk knew when a hunch was right.

It wasn’t often, but when it did, things had a tendency to work out just right.

“Mindsinger was playing us,” Hawk muttered, “and Jon didn’t pick up on it.”

“Jennifer did,” Scout reminded him as he started loading the Project New Order files information into the computer. “She had you on the ropes about it, too.”

Hawk sat down next to the computer console and watched as the code quickly loaded on the screen. “Jennifer doesn’t miss much,” he commented, “but we were right – she’s never met anyone who behaved like Mindsinger before. I didn’t notice it until Jennifer mentioned it, but Mindsinger wasn’t upset that we shut down her computers. That was odd.”

Tank knew exactly what he meant. “They were having a few other problems at the time, maybe she was distracted? We put her out of business for a while until she could get her systems up and running again. She didn’t mention any of it or make us pay for any damages or lost revenue when we left.”

“Doesn’t make sense,” Hawk muttered. “A lot on this mission doesn’t make a lot of sense when you try to figure it out.”

Tank cleared his throat. “One thing we don’t have to figure out is that Jennifer didn’t like Mindsinger flirting with the captain.”

“Rather aggressively too,” Hawk laughed. “Reminded me a little of this one girl he knew back when he was a teenager. Met her in a settlement in Washington State. Nice girl, smart, forward, left Jon in no doubt about how she felt.”

Scout punched a few buttons on the console. “This download will take a while,” he muttered. “So how did the captain respond to the girl?”

“Like a young gentleman,” Hawk told them. “Stuart and Morgana did raise him right, you know, so he politely ignored her -- more or less.”

Scout leaned back in his chair. “Like he did with Mindsinger?”

“Yeah,” Hawk crossed his arms as he remembered. “Jon’s not someone who wears his emotions on his sleeve but he wouldn’t intentionally hurt the girl’s feelings. Besides, we noticed Mindsinger the moment she entered the room. She’s not ordinary and, let’s face it -- she gets your attention. You can’t really ignore her.”

Scout checked the monitor once more to make certain the download was working properly. “The captain hasn’t had eyes for anyone but Jennifer for a while. Maybe that’s why Mindsinger didn’t register with him?”

“Maybe,” Hawk agreed. “This was the first time something like this really bothered Jennifer.”

Tank leaned back against the wall. “She didn’t say anything when the captain went to meet Athena Samuels,” he remembered. “Unless we didn’t notice?”

Not noticing…Vi’s comments when they met the Wardogs echoed in Hawk’s memory.

_“So what’s the story there?”_

_The question took Hawk by surprise. “What do you mean?”_

_“You didn’t notice the looks between those two? There’s something going on,” Vi told him._

_Looks? What looks? “What do you mean?”_

_“Oh, come on, Hawk, you’re not that old. You can’t tell me there’s something going on between those two?”_

_Going on? Okay, maybe he was getting older and the hair on his head was a little thinner, but he never had trouble seeing what was right in front of him._

_Vi laughed. “Oh, Hawk, before one would answer, they’d look at each other like they were trying to decide what answer to give. There’s some kind of unspoken communication going on. You haven’t noticed?”_

There was so much they hadn’t noticed, maybe they missed any reaction to Athena Samuels? “Whether we did or not, the way everyone acted at Tech City has her thinking.”

Scout laughed. “Thinking? Mindsinger made a play for the captain right in front of Jennifer, and she wasn’t subtle about it.”

“And got the green-eyed monster all woke up,” Hawk commented. “Good thing Jon didn’t respond like Mindsinger was expecting. That may be what they need to start talking.”

“Right now, you’ve got them in the kitchen alone,” Scout pointed out. “They’ve got their chance.”

“Are we doing the right thing?” Tank asked his friends. “Should we be playing matchmaker with them?”

“We’re not doing that,” Hawk told him. “We’re just giving them a little nudge toward each other. Jealousy is as good a nudger as anything else. Just don’t let on that we’re helping out any. I don’t think either one of them would like it. Everything just needs to seem normal.”

Scout checked the upload. “So that’s why you orchestrated the big con to get them on KP together tonight?”

Hawk cleared his throat. “Nudging,” he reminded him with a wide grin.

Vi had been right about another thing. The three of them did have more to talk about these days than just baseball scores.

 

~*~*~*~*~

 

“I think Hawk did this on purpose,” Jon muttered as he stacked the plates.

“Why?” Jennifer asked as she cleared off the table.

“He had that look in his eye he used to get when he tried to trick Joanna. He wanted us on KP for some reason.”

“Maybe he just didn’t want to clean up. He did cook, after all.”

Jon looked sideways at her with a grin. “No, I know him. He’s up to something.”

They carried the dishes into the kitchen and placed them in the washer. Hawk’s idea of a night off had been a good idea. They laughed, talked, joked and relaxed. Things had been tense for them for too long. Jon blamed himself for letting that happen. He needed to remember that they were human, not machines. They needed downtime. Luckily for them, Hawk had realized it.

He turned to leave but stopped when he saw Jennifer sit down in the chair, lean back a bit and pull her hair out of its ponytail. When they first met her, simple things like wearing her hair loose was an alien thought. So much of her life had been regimented, everything from her thinking processes to her appearance, that doing anything different would have been considered an act of defiance to a Dread Youth. Slowly, over time, so much about her changed. That regimented belief system lost its firm hold, and the real Jennifer Chase began to emerge. She was innocent but not naïve. Compared to the brashness of some of the survivors like Mindsinger, Jennifer could be considered young in experience but she was so much older in outlook than others. Perhaps not having a childhood caused that. Jon was still finding out all the small nuances that made Jennifer _Jennifer_. Every day, some new aspect of her personality appeared, and the more they were together, the more Jon wanted to know. There was a mystery there.

When they were in Tech City, he tried his best to ignore Mindsinger’s rather explicit conduct without insulting her. Jon knew how to flirt, he knew how to accept or reject a woman’s attentions, but he honestly hadn’t wanted to acknowledge her behavior. Her exterior was a tough bravado that left nothing to the imagination. In short, she wasn’t his type. He preferred to be with someone who was genuine, honest and smart.

“Did your opinion of Tech City change while we were there?” he asked.

Jennifer shook her head. “No, not really. Just the idea of the place makes my skin crawl.”

Jon sat down next to her, his fingers absently tapping the table. “Me too. I know we use computers but some of the people there were absolutely dependent on them.”

“I can’t imagine anyone willingly putting themselves at the mercy of a computer.” They were silent for a moment, then Jennifer asked, “What was it like when you were in the web?”

“Unnerving,” Jon said immediately. “It was like being caught in a dream when you’re aware that you’re dreaming. You can control it somewhat, create scenes and occurrences, but it all felt fake.”

“You saw your father,” she said in a low voice.

“Not quite. I saw a memory of my father. I don’t know who brought him into the scenario. I may have, but I’m beginning to wonder if something else was at work in the web.”

“What do you mean?”

How could he explain? He was still pondering the questions his trip into the web had left with him. “The information was there to be found fairly easily. It’s almost as if it were left for us. When Dread showed up, it seemed there was something else in the web working against him. I can’t say I consciously conjured either my father’s image or Lyman Taggert in there, and I can’t see Dread causing them to appear either. So if neither of us did that, who did? Mindsinger said we were the only two in the web at that time, but how is that possible? Too many people are addicted to jacking in, so wouldn’t others have been in there at the same time? She doesn’t run the only jack-in station in Tech City. It almost feels like a setup, but I haven’t been able to figure it out yet.”

That was a lot of information almost in one breath.

Jon immediately realized that he wasn’t the only one asking questions about their latest mission. Jennifer was questioning it as well. “So maybe someone wanted us to have the file, but then why place it in the web? Why not just give it to us?” she asked.

“Maybe they couldn’t? Maybe this was the only way to do it safely? I don’t know. I don’t even know if the file was planted there in the web for us or if it’s all just coincidence and supposition on our part. It’s just…”

“None of it makes sense,” Jennifer said. “I know.”

Jon leaned back and relaxed. It was good to know that he wasn’t alone in his suspicions. “I didn’t thank you for getting me out of the web the way you did. It was ingenious.”

Jennifer shook her head and smiled. “Not really. Mindsinger said that if we jacked you out mid-run, it’d flatline you, but I knew an EMP could end the run of the jack-in as long as the system’s shields weren’t strong enough to withstand a localized blast.”

“Lucky for me,” he said. “I do appreciate it.” He smiled at her.

“We were lucky that a lot of Tech City isn’t powered by electricity.”

That, Jon didn’t realize. “It isn’t?”

“No,” she told him. “If it had been, then the EMP should have shut down the entire settlement. They might have a chemical generator as backup.” She paused and moment, then asked, “So what were you doing in the web when the run ended?”

“Fighting with Dread. Lyman Taggert had showed up. I don’t think he could stand seeing how he used to be because he shot himself.”

Jennifer considered what he said. “Even knowing the risks, would you jack in again if you got a chance to see your father?”

Would he? The thought had crossed his mind, but he knew the answer. “No. My dad’s dead. He’s just a memory now, and I don’t need the web to remember him.”

“I wonder what I would have seen if I had jacked in,” she murmured more to herself than to Jon.

Jon didn’t know how to answer that. Of all the things she could see, so much could have been nightmarishly bad. Whether it was a replaying of the events of the dream she’d had since she was a child or reliving what happened at Sand Town, he didn’t want to subject her to that. “I can’t say what you would have seen, but hopefully we won’t have to go back to Tech City again for that reason. I don’t think they were too sad to see us leave.”

That brought a laugh. “No, after we helped shoot up the area, I can’t imagine they would have been. If the clicker reinforcements hadn’t shown up just after that, we could have finished off Blastarr. I think that’s going to come back and haunt us.”

Jon nodded his head. “That, I can definitely agree with. I just hope we haven’t harmed Mindsinger’s business by going there. Dread could take his revenge out on her.”

“I don’t think she has anything to worry about,” Jennifer told him. “She can handle herself. After all, isn’t she a rare woman?”

Jon didn’t have to consider an answer. “No. She’s tough, mercenary and a survivor but she’s not rare in the way Hawk was trying to explain about earlier.”

Jennifer said as she leaned back in her chair. “I thought… I mean…but Hawk said --”

“She definitely doesn’t have what it takes to meet my definition of a rare woman,” Jon told her.

Jennifer’s eyebrows rose at that statement. “Oh? You have a definition?”

Jon smiled. “Yeah. Someone like you.”

“Me?” Jennifer asked, surprised. “But I’m not anything special.”

Jon leaned forward and said, “Believe me, you are. You’re intelligent, tough, stubborn, you’re definitely independent but more importantly, you’ve got a heart. Not only that,” he couldn’t stop the grin from forming, “you can beat me at chess,” he joked.

“I see!” she laughed out loud. “That’s a prerequisite, is it? Beating you at chess?”

“Not many can, you know,” he teased. “I’ve even beaten Mentor a few times.”

“That’s not saying much,” she teased back. “I’ve beaten him too.”

Jon crossed his arms and leaned on the table. “Know what we need?”

Jennifer crossed her arms and leaned on the table, mimicking Jon’s pose. “A chess contest to see which one of us is the best -- you, me or Mentor?”

“Race you to the computer?”

 

The End


End file.
